As I watched the snow fall and immediately melt this past week, I thought it was perfect. That’s certainly not how I felt in my younger days. A perfect snow back then was one that got us out of school. It didn’t matter if we had to make the day up later because we lived for the day. I’m not sure I enjoyed it very long. Snow here is generally wet. After a short time playing in it, I was cold and wet. That’s not pleasant for a skinny kid.
Of course, we would try to do the things people do where snow is expected. We would throw a few snowballs and make a pathetic attempt to build a snowman, but my hands would turn pink and go numb after about 5 minutes of that nonsense. Sometimes, we would bundle up and venture into the woods, knowing that tracking animals is possible for even the unskilled after snow. I remember one time we found a couple of large pieces of cardboard, and we took them up to Wanda Ray and Johnny White’s house. They had a nice hill to slide down. The only bad thing is that it ended on Jonesboro Road. We shot down the hill and right across the road, bouncing over the two ruts formed by the very few cars that had been out in the mess.
One of my most memorable experiences with snow started in Jekyll Island. Cheryl and I had left the kids with her mother and gone down to Jekyll Island. I was going to do a race on Saturday morning. We got there on race day, and the winds were gusting to 70 mph. I figured they would cancel it, but everything was set to go. But before we could get started, power poles began dropping on the course, and they decided to postpone it. So, we headed home. Fortunately, we had a full tank of gas. The power was out up the coast and inland for a short while. We decided to stop in Dublin for lunch, and it started snowing. By the time we got to Henry County, the low riding cars were scraping the snow off the road. We gathered up the kids and made it home OK, but that was one of the most significant snows I’ve ever seen.
We had another good snow when the kids were a little older, and it was one of those rare ones where it wasn’t supposed to melt for days. I think we started with the intention of making a real snowman. My property had a slight downhill angle toward the road, so we were crisscrossing somewhat downhill. We switched to trying to make a giant snowball somewhere along the way. Once it got to maybe 3 feet in diameter, we gave up on that and just pushed it down as best we could. Its weight was surprising, and it was more like an ice rock. Now here I am, pushing 40 years old, and I’m coming home from work wondering if that crazy snowball is still there. Maybe snow is so unusual in Dutchtown, we never lose that sense of wonder about it.
I had forgotten how thrilling a snow day is until my son started school, and as much as he loves it, he swoons at the idea of a free day arriving unexpectedly, laid out like a gift. – Susan Orlean
P.S. That snowball of ours lasted a few days shy of a month. 😊